


Two Runes

by violeteyes



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violeteyes/pseuds/violeteyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A seaside town in the Spice Isles holds both hidden treasures and hidden agendas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Runes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leyenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy, had a grand old time writing it. A. proofread it, and made me take out the terrible joke I put in this notes section. I didn't get to drop anywhere near as many old-school references as I'd have liked (as my serious playing days were all in the 90s, I was hankering to start rambling about aeolipiles and the Dance of Many and all that jazz) but it would have ended up derailing the story.

* * *

_The ocean knows no husband, but many men have been her lover,_ thought the old man. _I am certainly glad to be one._

A ragged sailor he, of many years, leagues and campaigns, he leaned out over the edge of the crow's nest of the good ship Isla de Encanta and squinted at the horizon. Well, I say good ship. The Isla de Encanta was actually an up-and-coming black spot on the western seas, taking to piracy much like waterfowl to water, politicians to graft and narrators to hyperbole. Sheoltun authorities and merchants tore their hair out in exasperation over the Isla. But this particular mid-morning upon the high seas, along the northern edges of the Spice Isles, the vessel was at peace. The sea was calm, the wind was favorable, the chores were done and the ship's mage had figured out what was causing that smell in the bunkroom. (It was Hodges.)

The old man, who, thankfully, was not Hodges (who was at this moment being hauled up a rope after having been given a bath overboard and was sputtering and splashing on the deck below), pulled a battered old mouth harp from a pocket and began to play. His job was basically done---their next port was in view, a faint grey smudge on the horizon, a day of liberty expected before their next voyage. The crew of the Isla would break their next fast in the town of Eina, and several idle seamen stood in the prow, chatting about the gambling, whoring and drinking they were looking forward to that evening.

It was at about this time that the mountain mysteriously appeared in midair above the town, and then not quite so mysteriously landed on it.

* * *

  
SOME 1700 YEARS LATER, IN APPROXIMATELY THE SAME LOCATION.

Chandra Nalaar stared at her tea. Stared may not be the proper verb---let us say "glared," though that may be giving short shrift to the sheer intensity of her gaze. The young pyromancer sat in a small cafe, feeling reasonably incognito. "Just another wandering traveler, a tourist, even," she'd muttered to herself as she had gotten dressed in "undercover" clothes that morning, while neglecting to deal with, or indeed notice the flame-red hair and signature goggles that would identify her to anyone who knew a damn thing about current goings-on in the field of planeswalking. Or her criminal record.

She glared, because she'd received word that Vess wanted to cut her in on a deal, and that it would be worth her time, dropping broad hints about her spiritual mentor, Jaya Ballard. And Vess was Late. And she was undercover, in a stupid-looking doublet. And Vess was still Late. Chandra sipped at her tea, which was nice enough, but she wanted this meeting to be over with so she could get on with her life. She slouched a bit and looked out over the veranda. It was a fine morning, and various carts wound their ways down the cliffs to the seaport below.

Catching a flash and flourish of expensive dress sweeping through the door, Chandra left her reverie and prepared to do business. Liliana Vess swept across the floor ( _with a dress like that,_ Chandra thought, _you can only move by sweeping_ ) and seated herself across from the other woman with a wan smile.

"Well, you look miserable. Not used to being up while the sun's out?"

Liliana's face fell. "I'm a necromancer, not a vampire, Nalaar. I'm surprised to see you're not running from the local constabulary."

"That's because I'm in disguise, Liliana."

"Sure you are." Vess smiled patronizingly. "Look, before this turns into a fight, what say I fill you in about what I've learned?"

Chandra drained her teacup, setting it back in its saucer roughly. "Speak."

"There's an archeological site further up the mountain. Historians, students, the usual lot. This island apparently has another island underneath it. Where we are, that was picked up by a planeswalker of the elder days and dumped here, so they're digging to study the old town, all that sort of thing. But now, wizards from Tolaria West and representatives of Benalia and the Suzeraine d'Avenant are scrounging around up there, and I've found out why."

Nalaar crossed her legs expansively, the toe of her boot tapping against the table's pedestal leg in transition. She gave Vess a somewhat exasperated look. "And?"

"It's no island. I imagine even you've felt the red mana concentrated below the dirt here---this was a mountain that someone was very, very displeased with. And the reason they were displeased because this mountain used to be on Lat-Nam, housing the School of the Unseen." Vess's eyes flashed with seeming satisfaction over her own cleverness. "I hear tell that just last week, they've found a highly unstable artifact with _her_ sigil on it, and are waiting for someone to arrive from Tolaria to take it away for study and safekeeping."

Chandra chewed on that for a moment. She'd heard of the School, of course, from the mages of Keral Keep. Jaya had spent some time there, in ages past, so it wasn't impossible that this was all on the up-and-up. As much as Vess would play her straight on something like this, anyway.

"I thought Lim-Dul had destroyed the School, not thrown it halfway across the plane."

Vess's eyes narrowed infinitesimally. _Hook, line, sinker,_ she thought. "Turns out the histories are wrong. Wouldn't be the first time."

"So what's the catch?" asked Chandra, a lock of ginger hair falling between the lenses of the goggles perched atop her forehead as she leaned forward in her chair. "Why are you telling me this when you know I'm just going to go and take it for myself? You expect me to go up there and get filled with Avenant arrows like a pincushion?"

Vess still smiled as she leaned in as well, their faces as close as confidantes, but the women planes apart in all else. Lowering her voice, she murmured, "No catch. Free artifact, possibly with untold powers. And all I want, in the end, is that you owe me a favor." Her feline smile spoke of death and pulled puppet strings, but Chandra grinned in return, eyes hard with resolve.

* * *

  
Later that night Chandra determined that "no catch" would be the words she engraved on Liliana's gravestone. Sneaking into the camp had been simple enough---a skeleton crew of archeologists remained behind while the politicians and mages had all gone down into the town for supper. Dressed in her preferred leather traveling gear, she'd nicked a Lantern of Insight from an empty work tent above and followed a winding path into the excavated caverns, eventually coming into a series of crumbling hallways canted some thirty degrees to the left, forcing her to step carefully around doorways and loosened rubble. The Lantern directed her fairly quickly to her destination, a bedroom whose doorway had half collapsed and a stone puzzle box, no bigger than two handsbreadths across. The box sat on a table in the corner, a pair of red runes on its top surface confirming its origins---JA & YA.

But for the life of her, it would not come open. Chandra held the box up at eye level, glaring hatefully at its perfectly-smooth sides, running a fingertip along its edge, thinking about all the spells she knew which could smash the box to pieces (many) and how many of those she didn't want to use for risk of destroying the box's contents as well (all of the above). In a fit of stealthy pique, she huffed once under her breath and shook the box. Something within rattled against the sides. Fabric? No, not quite. She put the box back down on the table and waved the Lantern of Insight over it, seeking just a touch of that quality. No luck. The lantern cast light on the box, but not on the puzzle.

"What would Jaya do about this?" she murmured to herself, biting her lip in concentration. "Well, she'd open it, since she knew how it opens, clever girl," her sense of rationality shot back, but that wasn't quite it, there was something else nagging her about the idea. And then it hit her, and her eyes widened, inhaling sharply. Picking the puzzle box up in her left hand again, she snapped her fingers once and both her hand and the box were wreathed in flames. What would Jaya have done? She'd have set it on fire. With a loud snap, the lid cracked upon a previously-unseen seam and slid apart, a single item within.

'Well done!' a sardonic voice sounded in Chandra's mind. 'I knew you'd figure out Ballard's old puzzle-box.' She whirled around to find two guards with pikes levelled at her breast, and between them, pushing a dark hood over his head, Jace Beleren.

"I've been set up," Chandra spit, eyes flashing both with figurative anger and literal magical energies. Without thinking, she lifted the leather half-gauntlet from the box and slid it over her wrist---the artifact tied itself down for her, snug but not uncomfortable. At her touch, the vast store of red mana within quivered, building to and anticipating a fiery release.

Jace spoke out loud. "I'll be having that now, Chandra."

Chandra Nalaar grinned widely. "Sure you will."

With a wave of her arm, the room was engulfed in flames.


End file.
